(AA) Canto 48: Warfaring
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There existed in the minds of the people a very powerful general conviction of Hitler’s greatness & mission. One must therefore bear in mind the feelings of reverence for his historical magnitude with which most visitors approached him, & the significance which they therefore attached to each word of his
Albert Speer
A Desperate Escape
O Eternal Light, shine in our hearts,
O Eternal Light, deliver us from evil,
O Eternal Light, be our support
Alevin
Burned day & night the crematoria,
By body barrows feebly heav’d them fed,
By Alfred Wetzler wheel’d, Rudolf Vrba
Scrawling a secret tally of the dead;
When all must sleuth
The meaning of this sum,
For, if they’d known the truth who would have freely come?
To warn the global synagogues
Of this titan travesty,
They pris’d apart the plants & logs
Of a toilet cavity
Where, to waylay the keen-nos’d dogs
& the depravity
Of being caught & tortur’d, they did spread
Tobacco soak’d in petrol, toes & head.
Squat deep in shit, yet undeterr’d
As they heard the searches,
They never stirr’d, no whisper’d word,
Silent as clos’d churches,
‘Til third night falls, out they’ll both crawl, Holocaust besmirches!
Auschwitz
April 13th
1944
Budding Love
Now don’t go thinking I must be drunk
if I love my good lady;
for without her I cannot live
Guilhem of Aquitaine
Time rushes as the brush of history
Paints frassic varnish oer th’embattled Earth,
Sennets resounding loud for Liberty,
A generation’s sacrifice her worth;
Hebe’s darlings
From valley, peak & shore,
Lull’d by true valour’s wings & poetry in war.
Maggie ‘I’ll-do-my-bit‘ Sumner
Sign’d up to the Land’s Army,
Threshing ‘Down South’ in hot weather,
Slim, scruffy, sweaty, sultry,
“My name is Carlton Dillinger…”
“Oh aye! Mi name’s Maggie!”
“Nice to meet ya ma’m!” “This one’s got manners!”
“When d’ya finish?” “Soon… will yer wait fer us?”
By wee heliochryse they walk,
Soon skipping hand-in-hand,
They stop to smoke, soon drop the talk,
As sudden lust’s demand
Consummates the bond between America & England.
Devon
April
1944
The Great Escape
We dared to hope against the spoken word
And even when their names were there to see
We couldn’t quite believe what we had heard
Denis Mackarness
Many months of muddy perspiration
Has built unto this tense, dramatic night,
From cramp’d passages subterranean
Seventy three men crwal into moonlight;
One muffl’d cough,
A sentry makes the find!
Deliverance is off, one hundred left behind.
Scattering in all directions
Bold as brass & sly they snook,
Til shoddy documentations
Watchful volk & sheer bad luck
Has denied their demonstrations –
Fifty thrown in a truck,
Twenty serv’d a severe smack on the hand,
Only three reach all-elusive England.
The truck halts at a remote spot,
Fifty file out to piss,
A mauser shot, their stoumachs knot,
“What the bleedin ‘ell’s this?”
Hitler’s machine gun vengeance, smoking muzzles spit & hiss.
Silesia
April
1944
Truthbreak-Heartbreak
children of forest & mountain,
with their eyes they could behold themselves,
their voices named the animals
Homero Aridjis
Acute perceptions keep two freaks alive,
These brave young pups, from the Pit absconding,
But one last tense ordeal left to survive,
This risky woman – would there be bonding
Or drumming yells
Summoning a Nazi,
To drag them back to Hell’s infernal palazzi.
She was a true Slovakian,
No love for country keener,
& welcoming them back again
Led them off to Zolina,
Where converse quite unsaccharine
Silenc’d the convener
Of a meeting of this Jewish Council;
“Twelve thousand every day, you say…” a chill
Blew thro’ the room for all could see
These men were not deceiving,
“Your family, your friends, they’ll be
Dead by now – start grieving…”
& tho’ they knew this was the truth, still sat they disbelieving.
Slovakia
April 25th
1944
Burmese Box
I shall murder if I can,
Spill the jellies of a man.
Or be luckless & be spilled
John Ciardi
Chess pieces playing on a global board,
Opposing pawns clash on the Imphal plain,
Where Gen’ral Slim has drawn the polish’d sword
That whupp’d the French & whipp’d the ships of Spain
Where Vera Lynn
Inspires the men with song –
As oer barge-chok’d Khyendwen Japan’s fanatics prong.
Life sinks to insignificance
Just a tennis court apart,
Death looting with indifference
The hot vein-strings of the heart
From savage arts to diligence
Those warring soldiers dart
& back again, if only to survive
Another day of dying, but alive!
As officers charge tanks with swords
The Japanese, it seems
Trudging discords, spent cases hoards,
From Britain’s budgeless teams
All beaten back to Burma, from Kohima, with their schemes.
Nagaland
May 18th
1944
Homecoming
For it’s the same old story,
There’ll be no jokes when you come back
And little bloody glory
Timothy Corsellis
The soldier may be taken from the War,
But that War will never leave the soldier,
Into Rosegrove the train roll’d… as a door
Flung ope, there stood worm-eyed Tommy Sumner;
His only leg
Tip-tapp’d onto platform,
He paus’d, roll’d up a fag & hobbl’d his way home.
He was a simple, honest man
From streets pluck’d ordinary,
Out-serving the ferocious span
That was his ‘Tour of Duty,’
But home was where the hate began,
Twas alien country –
The fate of Western civilisation
Depends on jam, suet, spam & bacon.
Tommy carried little Lucy
To bed & said, “Goodnight…”
“Goodnight,” said she, innocently,
“Why did yer ‘ave to fight?”
“To save the world from one bad man, go sleep or he might bite!”
Burnley
May
1944
Jungle Liberty
Looking out towards the horizon
I dream of my escape
Freedom beckons me
Ernestine Northover
Shane Slater sat cracking his teeming lice
Emaciated, weaken’d with fatigue,
Sustain’d by friendship & handfuls of rice,
Laying this damn’d railway league after league;
“You are cowards!”
Brave men told ev’ry day,
Ramm’d home with fists & swords slicing ensanguin’d spray.
Poor Alfred, half dead with disease
(most thought he’d nearly had it),
Shown piles of rocks, “Coward! move these!”
He tried but could not do it,
So tied between two supple trees,
A sweep… the rope is split –
Terribly tearing his torso in two
Back upright went those bent trunks of bamboo.
Shane snaps, ghost looking on aghast,
Soul sharing his friend’s pain,
He broke & dash’d, the bullets pass’d
A bee’s dick from his brain,
Three miles of jungle flash’d before he saw his thigh’s bloodstain…
Thailand
May
1944
Traitors
It may be said that we tackled wherever we could,
That battle-fit we lived, & though defeated,
Not without glory fought
Henry Reed
With certain gen’ralry new thought took hold,
With growing doubt comes disillusionment,
Der Fuhrer naught but bemustach’d cuckold
Upon der Fatherland’s destruction bent;
“…Stalin soon here…”
“…We must agree a plan…”
“…our sacred country steer from that deadly madman!”
Having lost both an arm & eye,
Tho’ mind in prime condition,
Von Stauffenburg, willing to die,
Gneis’nau’s dashing great-grandson,
Responded to the sacred cry
Of this secret mission,
“I’ll do it if you guarantee the coup!”
“Assured, but first there’s one thing we must do…”
Von Falkenburg & Steulpagnel
Pour’d Rommel a fresh Schnapps,
“Just your name will avoid civil
War & Deutschland’s collapse!”
He thought awhile then gave it, “He’ll be martyr’d” “Yes, perhaps…”
Herlingen
May 27th
1944
Love’s Bond
Who will stir up whirlwinds of furious fire
If we do not, & those whom we call brothers?
Join us, Romantic friends! Forget all others!
Arthur Rimbaud
The moon was full & the night rippl’d fair
For the coming home of Monsieur Merlot,
Drifting gently on cushionings of air,
Dogs barking in the farmyard dark below;
Piercing the night
Shone secretive beacon,
Bright-flickering flashlight of the destination.
With wonderful euphoria
Black boots thump bon native ground,
Poetical adventurer,
Unborn children to astound;
Welcoming this paratrooper
The Maquis gather’d round –
To their lovely leader, Miss Innocent,
A concupiscent angel had been sent.
“Pierre!” “Veronique!” cheeks embrace,
Love shares its desp’rate cling,
While passions race the jaundiced face
Of Constance simpering
Distorts to monstrous maelstrom… blister’d with twisted feeling.
France
May 29th
1944
Mumble Words 